


All your resolve (dissolves)

by animegoil



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 22:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animegoil/pseuds/animegoil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season two: Tim watches Dick fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All your resolve (dissolves)

 

**All your resolve dissolves**

Tim may be young, but he’s not so blind that he can’t see the way Dick has the steering wheel gripped tight, the synthetic fiber of his gloves straining and groaning. That wouldn’t be necessarily alarming, except for the steady trickle of blood sliding down Dick’s arm, accumulating precariously at the corner of his elbow. The Batmobile has automatic steering, for cases just like this, but Dick had ignored Tim’s offer to bandage his arm and slid into the seat without a word. Tim had followed, and now he watches him squeeze the steering wheel periodically, drawing another gentle pulse of crimson from the cut on his arm.

Tim has enough experience with self-inflicted punishment to recognize it in others.

Dick didn’t flip tonight. Filling in for Batman means an automatic cut in the number of stunts Dick will pull, but they never _stop_ , as if Dick just isn’t capable of keeping his feet on the ground as gravity dictates. He slips in a somersault here, a twist there, almost subconsciously. But Tim has been watching the flips decrease in number and flair every night, inversely proportioned to the grim set of his lips under the heavy cowl. Right expression under the right cowl on the wrong face.

It’s a bad cut. Tim could tell from the way Dick had favored the arm after falling. It’s not rare for Batman to get injured, but what _is_ rare is for Dick to miss a landing. Even in his attempts to fit the mold of the suit, Dick is fluid grace. But he had somehow misjudged his landing, and Tim hasn’t seen him do that _ever_. Sure, he was outnumbered and it was a tight, sharp maneuver on uneven ground, but Tim knows that normally, that wouldn’t have been enough to make Dick slip up.

Dick is taking the curve into the Cave when the radio crackles to life.

“Batgirl to Batman, ETA?”

Dick’s face tightens, mouth frowning.

“What are you–” Dick slams the brakes and everything jolts forward. Luckily they were almost to a stop, so Tim doesn’t bang his head on the dashboard hard enough to warrant more than a quick rub. “ _Shit_ , sorry Batgirl, I’ll be there in fifteen—”

“You’re at the Cave already, aren’t you? Forget about it.”

“No, I told you I’d help– ”

“Batman, it’s _fine_ , I can handle surveillance on my own tonight.  It’s just information gathering, we can schedule for next week, okay?”

“Babs—”

“ _Dick.”_

Tim winces at the use of personal names over comm lines.

“You sound exhausted,” Barbara continues, tone gentling without giving any grounds for argument. “I’d rather you get some sleep than waste time here. I’ll watch the goons for an hour or so, then leave and get some well-deserved rest myself. It’s not like the schedules we drew up were entirely realistic in the first place, we were bound slip somewhere.”

Tim thinks it’s very nice for Barbara to be using ‘we’. While it’s true that covering for Batman is hard, they’ve done it before. Everyone knows their assigned duties. Keeping it up for this long has been exhausting, but the truth is that Dick is the one showing the strain the most. Tim and Babs have been watching Dick crack around the edges little by little without knowing what to do. Tim has been trying his hardest to predict exactly what Dick will need at any given time but his efforts have been successful only to a point. For one, Tim is used to being _Bruce’s_ partner, and for two, Dick isn’t just juggling being Batman. There’s Bludhaven, which Dick still patrols twice a week. There’s the Team, which leaves Dick with his hands completely full now that they have this alien invasion to worry about. Add to that various consulting calls from the Justice League. With Bruce and the other Leaguers gone, they’re shorthanded as well and have to rely on Dick for favors that Bruce would do for them, like sample analyses and data relays. 

Then there’s thing that no one wants to talk about, and the one that has Tim the most suspicious. Artemis. Tim had known Artemis. Not very well, because she had retired soon after he’d joined the Team. But she always noticed him, in a way that many other people forgot to. Not as capable, Batman-trained Robin, but as Tim. She asked him exactly how much cake he wanted instead of just giving him a generic portion, and took him out for coffee once to see how he was fitting in. It was uncomfortable. But he thinks that had he had more time with her, enough to convince himself that he could open up to her, he could have seen her as the older sister to balance Dick being his older brother. He didn’t know her well enough to truly mourn her, but he mourns the could-have-beens.

He knows how close Dick and Artemis were, and was afraid that Artemis’s death would throw Dick into a fit of depression, but instead, Dick has thrown himself into his work. Tim knows that’s one way of dealing with death, but what strikes him is that more than grieving, Dick seems to be… nervous. Fearful. It makes Tim wonder if there was more to Artemis’s death than what had been reported, if there’s more coming that Dick is trying to protect them from. Tim rolls that ‘if’ on his tongue, a gracious concession, and he knows that’s all it is. Whether it’s related to Artemis’s death or not, _something_ is pushing Dick towards the cliffside. 

So Tim is vigilant. Because even if Dick doesn’t want them to know, someone has to watch out for him. Dick used to have friends for that, but lately, it seems they’ve all vanished, receding into the cracks of life. Tim ticks them off in his head. Artemis is dead and Kaldur betrayed them, though Tim hasn’t seen Dick mourn those facts as he would have expected. Roy has a mind-consuming vendetta and deeper issues the adults attempt to keep from the children even though the symptoms are clear as day to Tim. Dick used to hang out with Zatanna, later coming back with an extra spring in his step and a sly grin in Tim’s direction, after which he would try to expound on all the wonders of the female body. But Zatanna’s moved on to the League, along with Raquel. That leaves M’gann and Conner, and well... amongst the younger members, there’s the assumption that they are an untouchable triad, governing Mount Justice through time and experience.  But Tim is observant enough to know that’s an illusion: the strain of Conner and M’gann’s breakup has left the dynamics among the three of them weak. Conner has been more withdrawn since then. M’gann spends most of her time with Logan. Dick is, for all intents and purposes, on his own. So Tim is vigilant.

_Make sure he goes to sleep_ , Babs texts him.

Tim replies an affirmative, trailing behind Dick, watching the edges of the cape drag along the ground with the whisper of a snake.

When Dick pries the cowl off, he always closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if it’s the first full breath he’s been able to take all night. Tim used to feel a little like that when he first became Robin. The mask was the weight across his shoulders, and freeing his face was letting Robin’s legacy (heavy with Dick’s exuberance and Jason’s audacity) fall away.

Dick runs his fingers through his hair a few times with his good arm, then drops the cowl with a heavy slap on the table. Tim follows at his heels, spraying his mask with dissolvent and peeling it off. He shields his eyes for a moment at the change in brightness.

“Good job today,” Dick says, laying his hand on Tim’s shoulder. It feels heavier than it should. His voice reminds Tim of a faulty faucet, the words straining and groaning to exit the pipes. “Go shower and you can go home.”

Tim looks down and fiddles with the fastening of his cape instead of responding. He’s been watching Dick’s smiles progressively stiffen into wax parodies of themselves. And like wax exposed to too much heat, they’ve started to wilt at the edges, dripping lower and lower each day.

“Welcome back, gentlemen.” Tim jumps and turns to find Alfred standing behind him. He immediately scours Tim, looking for anything worse than the few scrapes he has, but Tim shakes his head and nods towards Dick. This, at least, is no different from working with Bruce. Tim is willing to bet that he would have come back from his shower and Dick still wouldn’t have gotten his arm stitched up.

“Ah, Master Dick, it seems you are in need of bandaging.”

Dick’s shoulders slump. “It’s no big deal, was just gonna patch it up later.”

“Nonsense, Master Dick, do take a seat. It will be excellent practice for Master Timothy.”

In true Alfred fashion, that’s not entirely untrue, but Tim knows it’s an excuse to force Dick to sit and distract him for just a little longer, give his exhaustion a chance to seep in enough to convince him to go to sleep. Dick’s fingers linger on the keyboard of the mainframe computer for a second longer before he pulls away and drops into a chair.

“Excellent,” Alfred says, “Now do sit still, and Master Timothy, come to this side so you may see the ministrations properly.”

Tim does, keeping one eye on Alfred’s hands – not that he doesn’t know the basics of stitching, but the edges of Dick’s wound are jagged and require a few turns and knots that Tim might not have thought of immediately.  His other eye is on Dick’s face, the way his cheekbones run just this side of too sharp, and his eyes are focused on something miles away, cloudy in a way that makes Tim ache. There are purple smudges on his lower lids, as if someone had pressed their thumbs too hard under his eyes and stretched the skin out. This is not the Dick Grayson Tim had met, with the gleam in his eyes and the near constant quirk of his mouth, amused at everything and everyone. There is no idle chatter, and Tim finally looks down and focuses completely on Alfred’s words, because the honest truth is that he’s uncomfortable. It reminds him of watching his father drinking too much bourbon in one night, or, when he was much younger, those few months his mother spent at home, no trips, no outings. But instead of making Tim happy, that one of his parents was actually home for longer than a few days, the image of her robed figure trailing listlessly about the house terrified him.  

At the tug of the last knot, Dick bolts up, brushing off the need for a bandage, and heads immediately towards the computer, a pulsing urgency to his steps, as if these lost minutes threaten to upset some grand scheme. Alfred purses his lips, shakes his head briefly. He and Tim trade glances, and Alfred says, “I will have food ready for you in a moment, young master.”

Tim nods and heads towards the locker room. He showers and pads out in soft cotton pajamas, and Dick is in the same position as when he entered. He doesn’t notice Tim. Not that it bothers him – Dick has more important things to worry about, and at times like this, it’s precisely Tim’s job to help without being noticed. To be neither seen nor heard, lest he disturb Dick and make him lose even more precious seconds.

Tim’s stomach contracts, not an outright growl, but sharp enough to remind him that he was hungry when they first came in. It was a quiet surprise, to realize how much more food he needed to make up for all the training and patrolling and physical exertion when he first became Robin. He’s more or less used to it now, and luckily Alfred appears to find that not only natural, but desirable.

When he heads upstairs to the kitchen, Alfred is putting down two glasses of protein shakes next to two sandwiches on a silver tray. Tim inspects them and is not surprised to find the sandwiches loaded with kale and the most nutrient-rich ingredients Alfred could think of, and Tim’s, marked with a green-flagged toothpick, has no tomatoes. 

“Does his…?” Tim asks, grabbing the handles of the tray.

“Just a mild sedative,” Alfred says, wiping the counter and placing the condiments in neat rows again. “In both the drink and food, in case he leaves one or the other as he’s been prone to doing lately.”

Tim nods and takes the tray downstairs.

Dick is working on Team business, security plans glowing translucent blue on the computer screen, a videofeed of the Reach playing in the corner. When Bruce and the other Leaguers first left, Dick had kept most of his work separate. Team business at Mount Justice, Gotham work in the Batcave and, Tim assumed, Bludhaven work back at his apartment. Now he mixes them all, flipping between one and the other, and Tim isn’t sure if that’s reflective of Dick’s state of mind, the careful sectioning and boundaries breaking down, or if it’s a sign of getting so overwhelmed that he can no longer afford to hold off working on things until he switches locations. Neither option is particularly reassuring.

Tim sets the tray down next to Dick with just enough of a clatter to startle him, though he’d truly only meant to get his attention.

“Oh, hey, Tim,” he mumbles before turning back to the screen. Then he blinks and glances back at Tim’s pajamas. “Are – are you staying here today?”

Tim shrugs. “My dad isn’t home.” Not that it usually makes a difference – he doesn’t mind going home even when the house is empty. But it’s the perfect excuse for staying and making sure that Dick is alright. Dick’s brows scrunch up for a moment as if he wants to say something but then he sighs and scrubs his hand absently through Tim’s hair. His smile when Tim accidentally lets a pleased sound slip through is too droopy to be classified as such under normal circumstances, but it’s heartening nonetheless.

Then he takes his hand back and resumes typing. He doesn’t even look at the food. Tim wants to say, _here, eat_. But it sounds too close to an order, and adding _please_ is too much of an acknowledgment of both the situation and Tim’s worry. The thought of putting his feelings out there is terrifying. He’s not sure if that’s Bruce’s brusque dismissal of emotions rubbing off on him, because he can’t deny that things function much better when messy emotions are tucked away in favor of efficiency, or if he’s always been this afraid of showing care for others. He hasn’t had many people to practice with, after all.

So Tim goes for the more subtle option, the one that would have Barbara rolling her eyes and swatting his head. He picks up his own sandwich and begins eating. Where he normally would be silent, he makes sure to hum appreciatively. Nothing too obvious but just enough to—

There. Dick suddenly frowns and places his hand over his stomach. If there was a growl, Tim couldn’t hear it over the sound of his own chewing echoing in his ears. Then Dick does the strangest thing. He grabs the sandwich, looking for all intents as if he’s going to tear a chunk of it off and swallow without even chewing, but halfway through he stops and just stares at it, his face morphing into queasiness.

“Is… is there something wrong with it?” Tim asks.

Dick keeps staring at his sandwich, the green leaves curling primly under the crisp brown crust, layers of condiments, meat and cheese perfectly stacked inside. Dick stares at it like Tim had presented him something dug out of a garbage bin next to a strip joint.

“’Course not, Alfred made it… I just…” Dick keeps looking at his food, and Tim can see the indecision playing across Dick’s face, he just doesn’t understand why it’s even there in the first place. “You know when you just don’t have an appetite and everything kinda grosses you out?”

Tim doesn’t. It suddenly annoys him that Dick can mention that so nonchalantly, as if no one has noticed the forgotten trays around the Cave the past few weeks, the half-eaten wraps and sandwiches in the trash. Were Tim L’gann or Mal or heck, even Jaime, he might have called him out on it, but all Tim knows how to say is, “Oh. That’s… not good.”

Dick is already back at the computer, typing away, mutters absently, “S’fine, I’ll eat it later.”

He won’t. Tim was initially willing to believe that the subtle refining of Dick’s face was his imagination, or confirmation bias playing a trick on him, but he’s certain now, after seeing the ease with which Bruce’s cowl slipped off Dick’s face earlier, that Dick’s lost a few pounds between then and now.

At least he picks up the shake and takes a few sips of that, though he still grimaces as if nauseated.

As Tim nears finishing his food, Dick’s phone buzzes on the table next to him. From here, Tim can see it’s a text from Zatanna, though that’s all the screen informs him of. Tim revisits his previous statement. Dick isn’t actually completely on his own. Babs and Tim have been watching Dick with increasing grimness, and they’re doing all they can to help him. Of course, Barbara believes in more direct methods than Tim is capable of. One of those was an argument with Dick, which ended only when he finally lost his temper and yelled… no, _screamed_ at her that until she understood the magnitude of what was going on, then she had no right to talk. It was the raw frustration and misplaced anger, which Tim had never heard before, that finally solidified the wobbly tangle of worry in Tim’s stomach into a heavy, leaden ball.

“I wanted to push his buttons,” Babs admitted to Tim later. “Just to make him _realize_ that he’s taking on too much right now… he can be so _stubborn_ sometimes, God! But I didn’t mean to alienate him.”

After Artemis’s death, Conner took Tim aside, asking him various questions about how Dick was doing. Tim thought it was a bit late in the game to figure out that Dick was stressed, but again, Conner had been rather withdrawn since his breakup with M’gann so he supposed that it was reasonable for Artemis’s death to be the catalyst of his realization. It was vaguely amusing, the way he tried to go for casual, obviously attempting not to worry Tim. Tim can understand that – he’s seen the way Conner tries to protect Gar, but Tim doesn’t need that kind of protection. Not when he’s aware of it all.   

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Tim had said, cutting to the chase. Conner had blinked, leaning back a bit with surprise. “Batgirl and I are keeping an eye on him as well. But I… I don’t know what to do,” he’d finally admitted.

Conner had smiled then, a soft, fond smile that Tim found himself averting his eyes from. “Let’s play it by ear, then.”

Playing it by ear had meant Conner offering to take over a few of Dick’s duties, but the only one Dick reluctantly agreed to was training the younger members. He had been perplexingly adamant about remaining in charge of cave security protocols and oversight, even though past missions showed Tim that Conner is competent enough for the task. When Mal had insisted, saying Dick had been looking a bit rough around the edges, an understatement on par with saying Wally was fast, Dick had snapped back.

“It’s a fucking alien invasion, of course I’m a bit rough around the edges! The best way you guys can help me is by just having everyone do their damn jobs without a hitch.”

Dick’s chest was heaving with the force of his outburst, and at the shocked looks on Mal and Conner’s face, he’d pinched the bridge of his nose and scrubbed his hair.

“Look. Sorry. I know you guys want to help, but things are just a little hectic. Keep everyone else happy and things running smoothly, and I’ll take care of the rest, okay?” He’d given them a lopsided smile and shrugged. “You just might have to deal with a little grumpiness on my side. But I’m fine. Really.”

That had been the end of that.

Even M’gann had seen _something_ , reaching up to touch Dick’s face after a mission. There’d been a moment, during which Tim supposed she must have said something through their mind-link, after which Dick had smiled and said, “I’ll manage.”

So Tim revisits his statement. Dick _has_ had support. But he’s pushed them all away. And that’s…  not like Dick. Dick is amazing, able to handle just about anything on his own, just like Bruce. But despite that, he’s always the first to talk about the importance of teams and friendships. Everything Tim knows about working with a team he’s learned from Dick. Most of it he’s only starting to understand now, but he aches to have the connection Dick seems to have with the older members. So he doesn’t understand, though he’s been trying to piece it together, why Dick is now shutting himself off from his friends. Why he would ever self-inflict this solitude.

_Self-inflict_.

Tim suddenly raises his eyes from his food and stares at Dick, the untouched sandwich and the un-bandaged stitches, the wan tautness of his face, the way he sways ever-so-slightly as he stands. The knot of worry in his stomach tightens and slithers deeper among his intestines like a poisonous lizard, because if there’s one thing that is able to worm its way under Dick’s skin, it’s guilt. Guilt over Jason’s death is what both pushes him towards and away from Tim— Tim reads it in every warning and every pat on the head. Tim isn’t one for gut instincts usually, but the ugly head of a theory is rising. He’s reluctant to prove or disprove it, but the idea is there, that the _something_ pushing Dick away from his friends and towards the cliff is guilt. That’s not the part that makes him nervous though. No, it’s that Tim doesn’t want to imagine what kind of thing Dick might have done that would merit so much guilt.

It’s midnight. Tim swallows the last of his protein shake and hops off the counter.  It’s useless to hope that his goodnight will convince Dick that he should probably head to bed as well, but Tim tries nonetheless. Tim is almost to the steps when Dick’s phone rings, and the way Dick’s shoulders hunch as he picks up tells Tim exactly who it is.

Conversations with Wally never end well nowadays, and Tim’s definitely not leaving him alone now. He heads back towards one of the computers. Might as well settle in and work on piecing together the intel data they gathered the night before.  

“Hey, Wally… how’s it going?” The deliberate lightness of Dick’s tone is ruined by the hesitance, dancing around a fire to avoid getting burned. Tim remembers when a call from Wally meant Dick’s face lighting up and conversations that made Tim hold back a laugh even being privy to only one side. Conversations with Wally now never go like that.

“I- I know, it’s still… in progress.” Dick glances in Tim’s direction and sighs. “Look, give me a second.” He turns to Tim, smiles apologetically. “Gonna take this outside, Wally wants to talk in private.”

Normally Tim would have already excused himself to give Dick privacy. All the best reasons still leave him embarrassed that his presence is forcing Dick to have to go somewhere else. The only good thing is that Dick is gone by the time the flush makes its way up to Tim’s face.

Dick comes in an hour later looking instead like it’d been a year. Tim keeps typing, even if his rhythm slows, and watches from the corner of his eye as Dick stumbles a bit and slumps into Bruce’s chair. Near the back of the cave, Alfred continues organizing the medical equipment, but shifts his angle just enough to allow for an unobstructed view. Dick does nothing more than put his head in his hands and dig his fingers into his scalp.

Ten minutes later, he still hasn’t moved and Tim has torn the tip of his upper lip with his teeth. He should say something, but he doesn’t know what. He should _do_ something, but he doesn’t know what.

“Master Dick,” Alfred says, putting a hand on his shoulder when Dick doesn’t react. Dick scrubs a hand over his face and finally looks up, eyes faintly bloodshot. His throat jerks several times, as if he’s having trouble swallowing, shoulders drawn up so tightly it makes Tim cringe. “My boy, I believe some rest is in order, do you not?”

Dick blinks a few times, looking dazed as Alfred helps him up and ushers him upstairs, holding him upright as Dick trips on the steps. Tim has to wonder how he’s still even able to stand. Tim’s been dosed before with Alfred’s sedatives, and it wasn’t five minutes in before he was already yawning.

“You too, Master Tim.”

Tim saves and closes his files, and follows upstairs. His job down here is done.

After bidding Alfred and Dick a good night he takes a deliberately long amount of time flossing his teeth and brushing his hair, waiting for the light under Dick’s bedroom to turn off. When it doesn’t, he pads silently over to Dick’s door. The inside doors of Wayne Manor have antique locks, the quintessential keyhole-shaped ones, kept polished and functional by Alfred. Tim kneels and places his eye over the keyhole, shifting until he catches sight of Dick, hunched over the laptop on his desk, hair strewn messily over his face. Tim doesn’t recognize what he’s working on, but that same gut-curling feeling rises. That same suspicion about guilt, worse things coming, and Artemis’s death. Even before her death, Dick has been working on something, something he disappears occasionally for. Tim noticed, but hasn’t pried – he’s only Robin, only a kid, of course there are things bigger than him, things he’s just not meant to know. But if this thing is what’s tearing Dick apart little by little, then Tim doesn’t want to sit still.

Through the keyhole, Tim can see Dick’s hand rise to scrub at his eyes every few seconds, see his head bob down occasionally. Dick is trying so hard to stay awake, and it makes Tim feel irrationally guilty, because instead of making it easier for him with a cup of coffee, they’ve given him sedatives to fight against in addition to his previous exhaustion.

_He’s not sleeping_ , he texts Conner when he gets back to his room, sitting on the mattress, the covers cold through his pajamas.

_Because he can’t, or because he doesn’t want to?_

Tim licks his tongue over the raw spot on his lip. _Don’t know._

_Sleep with him._

Tim gawks, but Conner immediately follows up. _Uh, that sounded weird._ The next response takes a few seconds longer to appear. _When we were kids and he was being stubborn about going to sleep, someone would uh… cuddle with him, and he’d usually end up falling asleep too. Try that._

Tim spends a few seconds gaping at his phone before he thanks Conner and hops off his bed. It wouldn’t be the first time Tim has slept with Dick, though it was usually Dick cajoling him into it, as opposed to Tim initiating something of that sort. But Tim is nothing if not good at subterfuge.

He puts on his best troubled expression and knocks on Dick’s door. There’s a pause, heavy shuffling, and Dick says hoarsely, “Yeah?”

Tim opens the door slowly, peeking in. As expected, the laptop is closed and Dick is plastering on a poor imitation of his usual inviting smile.

“I just… I couldn’t sleep.” He scratches his arm for added effect. “I’ve been having weird dreams lately. Can… can I…?” If this were a case of him simply wanting to get attention, he wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Especially because the last thing he wants is to be seen as kid who still has nightmares and needs an adult to sleep. But Tim is an excellent liar when he knows it’s for the sake of someone or something other than him.

Dick’s smile widens into something just a little more genuine, even if still as stretched out. “’Course, Timmy. Wanna sleep here tonight? Get in bed and I’ll take a shower and join you in a bit.”

Tim nods, and the relief on his face doesn’t need to be faked. He settles into the bed, digging under the covers and shivering a bit, listening to the shower turn on and run. Dick comes out by the time the covers are finally gathering and trapping Tim’s body heat, and it’s only a few moments later that Dick joins him. He lowers himself on the bed slowly, and the sound of old creaking machinery comes into Tim’s mind unbidden. Tim waits for him to settle on his side, shower-warmth seeping between them, stitched arm carefully out of the way, wondering whether he should be closing the gap between them. Dick solves the problem, inching closer until Tim’s forehead is pressed against Dick’s chest, and lays his stitched arm over Tim’s shoulder.

“You okay now? You were really quiet tonight.” Dick’s voice rumbles in his chest, still hoarse and strained, but gentle in a way that makes Tim duck his head in embarrassment.

“I should be asking you that,” Tim says before he can help himself. He stiffens, hyper-aware of how accusatory that sounds, but Dick just breathes out something that might have been a laugh at any other moment.

“What makes you say that?”

Tim fingers a wrinkle on Dick’s shirt. “You’re… working really hard.” _Too hard_.

Dick sucks in a breath and then says, all too easily, “Well, of course, Timmy. Gotta hold down the fort until Bruce and the others get back. Can’t have an alien invasion happening on my watch, can I?”

Tim doesn’t respond. He feels the weight of Dick’s wounded arm on his shoulder, and remembers the new lines etched around Dick’s face. He thinks about himself, watching from afar, too afraid to voice his concern, too unsure about his worth to expect it to be seen as more than meddling. He thinks about Barbara, Alfred, Conner, and M’gann. He thinks about the way Dick has brushed them off, but how they still tried. It may not make a difference, but he wants the courage to do more than just watch Dick, more than just worry and rely on subtle, vague strategies. He wants the courage to express himself.

Tim breathes in deeply, shuts his eyes and forces his hands to stop clutching Dick’s shirt. “We just… I just… want you to be happy. And you haven’t been.”

He bites his lip and ducks his head, sure that he’s overstepped his boundaries, but a part of him feels satisfied, because he’s been _wanting_ to say that, wanting to release that harness around his chest for the better part of a month now, and he can finally breathe freer for it.

Dick is still for a long time, Adam’s apple bobbing in the periphery of Tim’s sight. Then he gathers Tim a little tighter and whispers, “Thanks, Timmy. It – it’ll be better soon, I promise.”

It. Not ‘I’. But it’s a start.

Tim wakes up later that night to choked off sobs smothered under a pillow. Tim’s new-found courage withers, and he lies there, unable to do more than just listen with his own lips trembling, and hates himself for it. Next time, he tells himself. Next time he’ll have the courage to turn around and wrap his arms around Dick. For now, he just closes his eyes and wonders how much more they can take.

 


End file.
